A couple turns around and glares at me; but it encourages one to begin hammerin' on the glass with her near-gold purse, and just as I'm about to leave this turns the trick. The door swings open all of a sudden, and there stands a tall, well-built gent, with a green felt hat pushed back on his head, a five-inch cigar juttin' out of one corner of his mouth, and his thumbs stuck in the pockets of a sporty striped vest. On account of the curly brown Vandyke, he's kind of a foreign-lookin' party; but someway them smilin', wide-open eyes of his has a sort of familiar look.
For a high pressure storm center he seems mighty placid. As he throws open the door he steps back into the middle of the room, rests one elbow against the rail of a wired-in cashier's coop, and removes the cheroot so he can spring a comfortin' smile on the crowd. It's a brainy play. The rush line stops like it has gone up against a bridge pier, and then spreads out in a half-circle.
"Well, ladies," says he, "what can we do for you to-day?"
Do I know who it is then? Well, do I! Maybe it has been months since I've heard the voice, and maybe he does wear a set of face herbage that I'd never seen before; but I ain't one to forget the only real A-1 classy boss I ever had; not that soon, anyway. It's Mr. Belmont Pepper, as sure as I've got a Titian thatch on my skull!
Do I linger? That's what! Why, I've been waitin' for him to show up again like a hired girl waits for Thursday afternoon. It's Mr. Pepper, all right; but it looks like he's been let in bad, for after one or two gasps in chorus that bunch of lady grouches gets their second wind and closes in on him with a whoop.
"Where's my dividends? I want to draw out my money! Say, you give me back my eighteen dollars, or I'll——You'll try your bunko game on me, will you? Hey! I've been waiting since noon to catch you, you——"
My! but they did have their hammers out! They called him everything that a lady could, and a few names that wa'n't so ladylike as they might have been. They shook things at him, and promised to do him all sorts of damage, from bringin' lawsuits to scratchin' his eyes out.
Mr. Pepper, though, he goes on smokin' and smilin', now and then throwin' in a shoulder shrug just to hint that there wa'n't any use in his tryin' to get in a word until they was all through. He almost acts like he enjoyed being mobbed; but of course he knew better'n to choke off a lot of women before they'd had their say out. He just let 'em jaw along and get it out of their systems. Fin'lly he raises his hand, takes off the green lid, and bows graceful.
"Ladies," says he, "I fully sympathize with your impatience—fully."
"You look it, I don't think!" sings out a big blonde, shakin' her willow plumes energetic.